Rockets have tough month ahead – Predict their March record

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The Rockets’ winning streak grew to 14 on Friday night, thanks to their 116-95 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies. The streak is the second-longest in Rockets history. They won 15 in a row in the 1994 season, the season in which they won their first NBA championship.

The most amazing thing about the feat is that the Rockets swept the entire month of February with 13 victories, including the interruption of the NBA All-Star Game. Eight of those victories were at home. Seven were won by 10 or more points. But, of the 12 teams the Rockets played in those 13 games, only three had a winning record – Portland, New Orleans and Cleveland (twice). The bottom line is that they took care of business and didn’t play down to an opponent.

March won’t exactly be a walk in the park. The Rockets play 15 games in March, only six teams that currently have losing records. Eight of the nine teams with winning records are playing for playoff positions in the Western Conference. This stretch figures to be the toughest of the season.

Here’s the Rockets’ March schedule. What record do you predict for the month?

36 Responses

10-5. I hope they prove me wrong though. I just believe with the big men in the west the rockets will eventually break down. Landry and Scola’s maturity will put to the test this month and lets hope they respond.It will be a make or break month and go Rockets. Never underestimate the heart of a champion.

I think they will be 7-7 and break even for the month. That should help get into the playoffs. Where they go in the playoffs is anybody’s guess. If they win one playoff series it would be a great achievement for this team. Would still like to see a back-up center picked up in the D league.

We lose only to Denver today, then next week to New Orleans, probably lose to the Lakers (but beat Boston the next game) lose to Sacramento and lose to some scrub team in there somewhere (probably Golden State or somebody like that)

I predict we will win 11 of those games. Our losses will most likely come to the Spurs, Warriors, Mavs and the Hornets. Since we play New Orleans twice this month, I think we’ll beat them one time but probably not both games, mainly because the Hornets can’t afford to lose to us twice and Chris Paul will not allow them to lose to us twice in one month. Our greatest wins will be against the Celtics, Lakers and Suns because many view our team as handicapped without Yao and I think the team’s focus will very high against those opponents. Match ups against Kidd, Parker, Davis and Paul will likely be the reason we lose to their teams, not the absence of Yao. Point guard play controls the destiny of the Rockets cause we’re running more and making the extra pass in Adelman’s system. If Alston doesn’t prevail over the 4 guards I listed, we’ll most likely lose.

Since I’m writing this after the win against Denver, I’ll predict the other 14 games of the month. I think they’ll go 10-4. The Lakers and the Spurs are playing just as well right now, so I see losses to both of those teams. Same with Boston. Dallas, Phoenix and Golden State are good, but they’re not playing that well at the moment so I think they can win two of those three. Thursday night will tell us a lot about how good the Rockets really are.

I think the Rox are going to suprise ALOT of people, especially these ESPN/TNT analyst and finish this month with a record of 10-4.

Honestly, If Yao was still playing I would definately say that Dallas, Phoenix, Golden State, New Orleans and the Lakers were sure losses, because the game slows down when you have to feed the ball into the post every trip and teams were able to either double team the big fella and force him to pass back out and establish new position which slowed the game even further, and made them predictable or they would just play a PF as a Center and kill the Rox in the open court by exploiting Yao’s foot speed in transition defense.

Without Yao, the Rox now plug Dikembe in the middle for about 20 min for defensive rebounding and shot blocking purposes and play small the rest of the time with either Scola, Landry, and Hayes as their Center.

If anything I see teams like the Lakers, Dallas and Hornets doing the opposite now and using their big guys to exploit the size of Scola, Landry and Hayes because they are a generous 6’9.

10-4 is what I say but honestly I think they will go 9-5 and finish the season with at least 50 wins.

I’m gonna say 9-6 for the month as a whole, including last night’s win. Like many others have said, I hope the Rockets prove me wrong (in a good way); it’s good to see the Rockets smiling and having fun out there. But there are several concerns I have:

1) We have three back-to-backs, with the second games all away from home (Dallas after Indy, Phoenix after GS, and NO after the Celts). Back-to-backs are tough as it is, but playing formidable opponents on the back end worries me. The NO game really worries me, as last time we played in NO, we decimated them. They’ll be out for revenge in both Houston and NO.

2) 15 games this month…it’s going to be tough to keep up that intensity level night in and night out.

Granted, there is some good:

1) The guys look like they’re having fun out there, and they’re not letting up until the lead is double digits with 1:00 to go.

2) We have passed the Mavs and the Suns in the standings for now; they are struggling a bit since their respective monster trades, so hopefully we can capitalize on that.